Key points
- Jewish community representatives say comparing animal slaughter to the Holocaust is ignorant and distressing.
- An activist has defended her use of the term, saying the term is not exclusive to one event.
- Jewish leaders are calling for an apology.
A prominent animal rights activist who likens the slaughter of animals to the "Holocaust" has angered representatives of the Jewish community, who say her words are "outrageous", "sickening" and "trample on the feelings" of Jewish people.
after animal rights protesters stormed a busy Perth restaurant that banned vegans in response to previous protests.
The returning protesters played the sound of squealing pigs over a megaphone, while in a dramatic video posted online, 29-year-old Peterson is heard saying, "the sounds you hear now are pigs screaming for their lives in CO2 gas chambers".
She later adds: "I will continue to speak up on the victims of the animal Holocaust," while her Instagram account urges people to "end the animal Holocaust".
Her comments have upset and angered members of Australia's growing Jewish community, which numbered nearly 100,000 in 2021, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
"The Australian Jewish Association condemns outrageous comparisons made by animal rights activists that invoke the Holocaust. It is highly inappropriate to leverage the murder of six million innocent Jews, including 1.5 million children, to further one’s political causes," said Robert Gregory, public affairs director at the Australian Jewish Association.
"Comparisons like this cause distress to the Australian Jewish community, which includes a large proportion of Holocaust survivors and their descendants.
"There are ways to advocate for the humane treatment of animals without comparing murdered Jews to pigs and other farm animals.”
Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive officer of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said while humane methods of slaughter are "serious matters", this sort of activism was counter-productive.
"Rather than sparking a discussion, this sort of activism only fuels contempt for these activists. Change is effected through outreach, education, having conversations with those who disagree with you.
"Equating victims of the Holocaust to livestock and implying that anyone who eats meat is complicit in a new Holocaust might get them some emotional gratification but nothing else."
Holocaust survivors 'have suffered enough'
Dr Dvir Abramovich, anti-hate campaigner and chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission, said Peterson was "resorting to the Holocaust playbook for pure shock value and to generate ignorant, immoral headlines for her cause".
"She has zero concern about trampling on the feelings of Holocaust survivors who have suffered enough and has no problem spitting on the memory of the millions of victims.
"To draw any equation between the treatment of animals to the systematic liquidation of men, women and children in the gas chambers and in open fields is beyond obscene and sickening."
SBS News has contacted Peterson for comment on her use of the term.
However, in an Instagram post in April, she defended her use of the word to describe animal slaughter.
"It's the largest Holocaust in history with approximately three trillion non-human people brutally murdered every year for human food consumption," she says in the clip.
Peterson adds that the term is not exclusive to one event, with its origins simply meaning "a destruction or slaughter on a mass scale".
"So by definition, what is happening to non-human animals is in fact a Holocaust."
Jewish leaders call for an apology
Last month the on flags, armbands and T-shirts that had been used repeatedly by a group of between 20-30 Nazi protesters in Melbourne this year.
The ban follows similar bans in states including Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
In 2021, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly equated mask mandates with Nazis forcing Jews to wear yellow stars.
She was sharply criticised by leaders of both political parties.
Then in 2022, ccusing Israel of committing "50 Holocausts" against Palestiniansprovoked condemnation from Israel and Germany.
Abramovich said employing an Holocaust analogy was misrepresenting history.
"Ms Peterson betrays an ignorance of what really happened in Nazi Germany as well as diluting the terrors of this dark period, only adding to the trivialisation of the Shoah [Holocaust] that is too prevalent today."
He said Peterson should apologise "for the hurt she has caused".
